


Spider Webs

by GoddessofBirth



Series: family!verse [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU from season 1 finale, Adventure, All sorts of other stuff, Alternate Universe - Canon, Always, Case Fic, Claiming, Conspiracy, Danny is always awesome, Drama, F/M, Family Secrets, First Meetings, First Time, Gen, M/M, Mating, Multi, Mystery, Pre-smut, Scent Marking, Slow Build, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-05
Updated: 2012-07-06
Packaged: 2017-11-04 20:50:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/398084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoddessofBirth/pseuds/GoddessofBirth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first of two stories set in the family!verse.  Three years after Derek becomes Alpha and forms his pack, a pair of visitors show up in Beacon Hills, with a mystery that could either tear the pack apart, or make something completely new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Raising Hale

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cedelede](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cedelede/gifts).



> So, it's probably bad form to start a story out with the OCs, but that's the way this one rolls. Next chapter will return to the ever fascinating happenings of Beacon Hills.

Adam and Kellen meet in the front of their mother's house. No matter that they've moved two towns away, Sunday morning breakfast is an obligation that's never going to change. Adam looks at Kellen and makes a face. His clothes look slept in, and the bed head and five o'clock shadow he's sporting makes it clear he hasn't actually been home.

 

'You smell like sex.'

 

Kellen grins and shrugs. 'Well, probably logical you should smell like what you've been doing.'

 

Adam punches his arm. 'You couldn't at least manage a shower?'

 

'There was a shower. Somewhere in there. And then I was running late.'

 

They head up the walkway, gravel crunching under their feet, and Adam frowns at the fact some of the flowers are wilting. It's not like their mother to forget to water, but then again, the weather has been unseasonably hot, even for North Carolina, and dry to boot.

 

'Am I going to get to meet this one?' It's not that Kellen's promiscuous – if anything it's the opposite - but he never brings anyone to meet either pack, and he never takes lovers from among the wolves they know. Always human, and it never works out. Adam has no idea what his brother's looking for; sometimes he thinks maybe Kellen doesn't know what he's looking for, either.

 

Kellen shrugs again.

 

'I could say you had to,' he pokes, just a little, to try to get a rise from Kellen, just because he _can_. He's never quite gotten over his older brother inclination to mess with him, so it's probably good Kellen's as even keeled as he is. It makes them an efficient team, a pack that runs almost without a hitch.

 

'You could.' And, as usual, Kellen's completely unconcerned.

 

'Where'd you meet him?'

 

 _Work_ , he thinks Kellen starts to say, but then they hit the porch and the door opens. It's not their mother, but Nathan, her first beta.

 

'Boys,' he says, and steps back to let them in.

 

Both Kellen and Adam have, at some point or the other, wondered if he might be one, or both, of their fathers, but the timings really not right for Adam – he was one or so before Nathan became the first to join with their mother in this cobbled together pack they all called family – and while it's possible with Kellen, the relationship between their mother and Nathan just isn't  _that_ . They're like Kellen and Adam but without the blood – best friends, confidants – but none of their interactions have ever hinted at the intimacy sex brings. 

 

Of course, it's always hard to know for sure with their mother.

 

They know there's a story there, why so young an Alpha would be on her own; when they're just kids, they ask – about that, about their fathers. Their mother's answer is always the same.

 

_'You don't need fathers. You have a pack; this pack is your family.' She gives Adam a fond smile and pulls him on her lap, even though he squirms, because, at seven, he thinks he's a little too old to be coddled. 'I wanted you, very much.' Then she hooks an arm around five year old Kellen and tucks him right into her side, the way they used to all sleep in a pile on the mattress, before the pack found time, and money, to build an actual home. 'And I liked Adam so much, I knew we had to have you, too.'_

 

She never expounds, and by the time they're both teens, they don't really care or wonder anymore, have long since accepted Elizabeth Hale lives her life on her own terms and expects her pack and her children to do the same. She's diligent in her duties as Alpha, protective, strong – Adam never feels qualms about patterning his own growth as Alpha after her, even after he and Kellen break into their own sub-pack. She's been his example his whole life; most kids worship Batman or Superman, Rogue or Jean Grey – Adam's superhero has always been his mother. It's hard to remember, sometimes, that he's over a decade older than she is when she has him, when she takes the position of Alpha to a disparate group of cast offs and solitary werewolves.

 

Nathan is strangely quiet as he leads them back to the living room, where the remaining six of his mother's pack is gathered. Everyone is here – except their mother. Kellen picks up on the unspoken signals first and asks bluntly, 'Where's mom?'

 

No one says anything for several seconds, long enough for Kellen to hear every heartbeat in the room double in speed, before Nathan finally answers.

 

'We don't know.'

 

'I'm sorry, what?' All the levity from earlier is gone from Adam's voice, but despite the fact that Adam could actually do real harm if he chose, Nathan looks singularly unimpressed. Kellen thinks there's probably some universal law that prohibits inspiring fear in anyone who's ever changed your diapers - not that either of them would want any of the pack to fear them.

 

'I said, we don't know.'

 

'Don't know  _how?_ As in, she went out for milk this morning and hasn't come back, or she picked up somebody in a bar last night and didn't call?' It wasn't beyond the realm of possibility – it was another way she and Adam were alike. ' _HOW_ do you not know.'

 

Marianna crosses her legs underneath her and curls her fingers around her toes. 'As in we haven't heard from her in five days.'

 

Kellen immediately reaches out for Adam's shoulder, in anticipation of the explosion. 'How in the  _fuck_ are we just hearing about this?' Adam is vibrating with anger, leaking it all over the room, and despite the fact Kellen thinks he has every right to the emotion, he presses his fingers hard into his collarbone, uses the grind of bone on bone to calm him down.

 

'Because she said not to tell you.'

 

'Wait.' Kellen – par for the course – is the one to parse together random bits of information before everyone flies out of control. 'Back up. Beginning?'

 

There's a possibility Nathan still won't tell them, if his mother ordered him not to, but in a way that would be comforting, because it would mean she's just gone, not dead. If she's dead, all bets are off. He tries to examine it dispassionately, without the thought that this is his mother, pretends it's just another Alpha from another pack. If she were dead, the pack would know; the sensory bond that runs through them all would be severed. He likes to think that even if they are technically their own pack now, even he and Adam would be aware of that. If she is the victim of another werewolf, they would know that, too, because someone should have come to collect the spoils. And if it were a Hunter...

 

He's growling in his chest now, the sound adding to the rumble coming from Adam, and Nathan grips them both by the back of the neck, pulls them in and presses their foreheads into his. 'Quiet.' A function of pack, a hold over from childhood – either way, it works like it always does, and the two men settle on opposite arms of the couch, while Nathan remains standing, taking the place that would usually hold their mother.

 

'Things have been happening in the area. Some werewolves disappeared in Asheville, and an entire pack has gone missing from Rock Hill.'

 

Adam shrugs angrily, because as rage inducing as the Hunters are, they exist. 'Then they got careless and Hunters - '

 

'Not Hunters. No wolfsbane, no graves, no sign of violence. They just vanished. We went down after the Rock Hill clan disappeared.' It's one of the few packs his mother has an alliance with; most of the Carolina clans pretend they don't exist. Elizabeth is too rogue, kicks too much sand in the traditions the southern packs hold to.

 

Kellen doesn't bother asking why they weren't told; he knows why. No matter how old they get, they will always be their mother's children and she's never been good at remembering they're adults she no longer needs to protect.

 

'We found this when we went.' Nathan slides a Tupperware container off the mantle and hands it to Adam. ' _Don't_ open it all the way.' There's some bluish powder inside, and Adam takes his warning seriously, barely cracks the lid and a sickly sweet odor leaks out. As soon as it hits his nose, he's disoriented. Dizzy, confused, and just wants to close his goddamned eyes and sleep. He's fairly certain he would have done it, too, if someone hadn't slapped the lid back down, but even with that, it's several long minutes before the smell clears enough that he can see straight.

 

'What the hell was that?' His wolf is prowling just below the surface, furious at being threatened and begging to be let out. He wonders if he's experiencing rebound aggression or if he really is just that pissed at almost being made helpless.

 

'We still don't know.' A glance around the room shows that the pack has all shifted closer to each other, instinctively seeking comfort against an unknown danger. They are strong, powerful, but no matter what the stories say, they aren't immortal, and every year, every  _week_ there's some new thing out there that can kill them.

 

'She should have come to me. I could have taken this to the lab –'

 

'We took it to a lab. It's nothing. Just a random grab bag of plants and herbs. Nothing that should have the effect it does. But it only effects the werewolves.'

 

They're being targeted then, but the question is who. His mother couldn't have left this alone, even if she wanted to. A weapon like this – it doesn't even require close contact. Nathan anticipates the train of thought.

 

'It wears off quickly; our systems flush it, but it's long enough that we could be captured or killed. Tuesday, Elizabeth called and said she had an idea she wanted to check out, that she thought she might could get some help. And then nothing. Her scent disappears about two hours west, down the I-85.'

 

'Then we start there.' Adam stands, but Nathan shakes his head. 'We can't. Elizabeth left specific orders.'

 

Adam's eyes flash to red. 'I'm saying we can.' 

 

Kellen doesn't even bother interjecting here, because he already knows what the answer will be. Nathan's mouth twists in a small smile as he stares unflinching at Adam, his own eyes going gold.

 

'Boy, the day may come when you'll be my Alpha,' – and since that day would correspond with their mother's death, it's not exactly a pleasant thought -- 'but that's not today. You don't get to give me orders.' It's another good sign – Elizabeth's commands are still binding. ' _We_ can't go.'

 

Kellen sees the second the light bulb goes on for Adam. Those legends, those traditions that mislead people into thinking wolves are bound by their Alphas, they seriously underestimate all the loopholes and gray areas a pack learns to employ. It's not every pack, but werewolves that are encouraged to think, to obey out of love and respect instead of fear of punishment – they learn to use their brains for those rare times their Alpha really  _does_ need to be countermanded.

 

Times like now.

 

' _You_ can't go.' Adam quirks an eyebrow at Nathan.

 

'No, we can't.' In eerie synchronization, the pack stands and files out of the room. Nathan is the last to leave and calls out behind him, 'We're going to IHOP.' Not surprising; one of the mated pairs is expecting, and Cynthia has eaten nothing but pancakes for the last thee weeks. 'Lock your mother's office when you leave.'

 

There's the sound of the front door clicking shut and Kellen joins Adam as they stare at the empty room in bemusement. His brother shakes his head.

 

'You think he even realizes I'm 28 and have a PhD?'

 

'Nope,' Kellen answers. 'I'm pretty sure we never got older than five in this house.'

 

* * * * * * * * * 

They spend the majority of the morning combing through Elizabeth's office, for some clue other than a Tupperware container filled with wicked juju, but they're coming up empty. There are the usual financial records, as well as some pamphlets for a political candidate their mother is supporting, and a flier for an upcoming rally at the State House, but nothing that points in any direction other than 'frustrating.' Even her laptop, once Kellen breaks in, is empty of anything unusual, any red flags that might scream  _follow the arrows to find your mother_ .

 

It's seven minutes to twelve when they finally hit what could be pay dirt. Adam is balancing on a stool to reach the top of the closet, aggravated enough he's more or less just chucking boxes out behind him and leaving it to Kellen to clean up the mess. If... _when_ they find their mother, she's going to kill them both over this. Far back in the right corner is a shirt box, and despite its out of the way location, it's not musty like the other things, and there's no dust built up on the cover. Adam climbs down with it and sits cross-legged across from Kellen as he opens it.

 

On the top is a folded piece of paper, so old and worn that it tears a little at the creases when they open it. There was writing on it at some point, but it's in pencil, and faded out to the point that the only thing they can tell for sure is the note is addressed to Elizabeth and signed with the letter 'C'. Underneath it though...

 

Underneath it are pictures. The first one is a photo of their mother – she can't be more than ten or eleven and she's standing next to a boy, their arms slung around each other.

 

'What the hell?' Adam murmurs, before flipping it over. There's an inscription on the back,  _Elizabeth and Adam_ ,  _Peter's 8 th Birthday_ .

 

'Well, at least we know where your name came from,' Kellen quips, but it doesn't sound funny and neither of them laugh.

 

'Who is he, do you think?'

 

'Him.' Kellen pulls out the next photo, points to the same boy. This one is oh so obviously a family portrait, everyone wearing wickedly tacky 80s fashion, and their mother is there, again grinning next to the boy –  _Adam_ , he thinks - along with parents, and two other boys, definitely younger than Elizabeth and Adam. Kellen will bet apples to diamonds that one of them is Peter.

 

A look at the back confirms it, with whoever was writing, designating names and people in the  _Left to Right; Row 1, Row 2_ Style of group photographs everywhere. Parents: Gabriella and Derek Hale. Kids: Elizabeth, Adam, Peter and Michael Hale.

 

'Holy  _shit_ ,' Kellen breathes. 'This is mom's family.  _Ours_ .'

 

Adam makes an unimpressed noise. 'Not so much. Otherwise I think she'd have told us. There's a reason she was on her own at fifteen.'

 

'Well, she kept all this, so they meant  _something_ .' There's picture after picture, of Peter, of Michael, of the parents, and wherever there's a picture of Elizabeth, Adam is there, too. Lying under the stacks of photos, there's a yearbook –  _Beacon Hills High School._

 

Kellen flips to the index and then to the right page, finds Elizabeth and Adam's pictures side by side.

 

'Twins,' his brother says flatly.

 

This is...this is bizarre. Kellen is still trying to digest the evidence of this other life his mother had, with siblings and a twin and parents who, from all appearances loved her. It's not that they didn't know their mother comes from somewhere, it's just that he's always assumed it was somewhere  _bad_ . But this doesn't look bad. It looks a lot like the family she's built here; she didn't even bother to change her last name. A tiny part of him is suddenly angry she's hidden this from him.

 

Adam is at the laptop, pecking away, and after a minute he says, 'It's in Northern California. As far away from here as you could get and still be in the country.'

 

'Has she ever said anything to you?' In some ways, Kellen suspects Adam is closer to their mother; he's the first born, and the fact that they're both Alphas means there are things they share, that Kellen can never fully understand. Maybe she would have felt more open - 

 

'No.' Adam's answer is abrupt. 'Not a damn thing.' Then he's back at the keyboard again. 'If you were taking the road, it's west on 85.'

 

Kellen looks up from where he's sifting through family-but-not-family. 'The way mom was going when she disappeared.'

 

'The box is fresh. And she did say she was going for help.'

 

'After all this time, though?'

 

Adam shrugs. 'It's family. Maybe it's a last resort.'

 

'Best lead we've got.'

 

'Only lead. Especially if Nathan really doesn't know jackshit.'

 

Kellen nods. 'That too.'

 

It's a shitty plan and it's grasping at straws. Kellen knows it, and he's 99.9% Adam knows it, too, but if they don't have this, then they've got exactly squat, and it's not an unattractive idea to see where his mother came from. He quietly makes plans to keep researching other avenues, but he knows Adam feels the same thrum of urgency he does – Elizabeth never goes without touching base for this long. They need to feel like they're doing something,  _anything_ , or they're as good as admitting there's nothing they  _can_ do. So he just nods again when Adam speaks and starts putting pictures back in the box.

 

'Game plan – go pack a bag and meet me at the house. Bring your laptop; we'll see if the Hales ever made the news.


	2. The Kids Are Alright

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case there was ever any doubt, this story definitely goes AU after season 1. There's no way in heck I'm retconning my story to add more wolves, so I will live in the wonder fantasy land of AU season 2 - 100...

Stiles is on his third turn at counting the lines in the boards that make up the roof of Derek's porch, when he finally hears the sound of Scott's pickup through the woods. By the time he rolls off his back and to a sitting position, it's pulled up in front of the house, and Scott has turned off the engine and is hurtling himself out the door. Alison climbs out her side at a much calmer speed.

 

'Sorry...sorry we're late. Stupid lunch ran long. You know how my mom can get.'

 

Stiles jumps up to give him a one armed hug and then receives a full body one from Alison. 'Nah, you're cool. Lydia texted this morning that she was late leaving her hotel, which means she'll be late picking up Jackson, and you _know_ it takes him forever to pack up all his hair product. And Derek called to say his plane was delayed. So you two are actually the first ones in. Well, except me. But you know me...always...here.' He recognizes in the middle of the sentence exactly how pathetic that might sound, even though it _isn't_.

 

Derek has finally decided to sell the condo he and Laura shared in New York, and for one crazy minute, as Derek is poised to head out Stiles' window, getting in last minute threats to Stiles and Scott to keep low while he's gone, Stiles almost offers to go with him. Because who wants to go through all those memories by themselves? He regains his sanity before he actually does it though – it's not like Stiles would be the best person for that anyway; he may be the unofficial co-captain of Team Wolf (and he  _is_ , don't let Derek tell you different), but he's pretty sure he still makes Derek want to rip his throat out on a semi-regular basis.

 

So Derek goes alone and Stiles does what Stiles does – holds down the fort. But now it's summer, literally his favorite time of year, and that has nothing to do with the weather. Everyone's coming home, and he'll have three whole months of wanting to hit Jackson, of discussing the world outside of Beacon Hills with Lydia, of soaking up a sense of family that goes beyond just him and his dad.

 

Hey, Stiles is allowed to be sentimental every once in awhile.

 

Scott collapses on the steps with Alison in his lap, and Stiles takes a moment to be benignly jealous of the easy comfort they've fallen into. While Scott still has a tendency to go wolfy if he thinks Alison is threatened, it's no longer over stupid fits of jealousy and any number of immature stuff. Scott, Stiles thinks, is actually starting to grow into a decent human being. He immediately feels guilty for the thought, because he's pretty much gotten over Scott's eleventh grade year of being the worst friend in the world  _ever_ , and Scott's always going to be his friend no matter what.

 

'Thank God,' Scott breathes, which makes Alison laugh. 'Derek can be so anal about this shit.' 

 

 _This shit_ being the start-of-summer cookout Derek began orchestrating the summer of their junior year, and yeah, he  _is_ uptight about it, but Stiles doesn't bother explaining that it's because it was something Derek's biological family used to do, and therefore  _important_ ; he doesn't know if Derek would want anyone else knowing about that. Instead he redirects back to Scott.

 

'So, how'd it go?' Today was the official 'Meet the Boyfriend' lunch with Scott's mom, even though Ms. McCall has been dating the guy for over a month and they've all run into them a time or two.

 

'Okay, I think?' Scott looks to Alison for silent confirmation and she looks back with a smile and a nod. 'I mean, he's kind of...twitchy? And I think he drank his lunch more than ate it. But he totally adores her and she smiles a lot. Way better than Pe - '

 

'Don't say it!' Stiles still can't get Peter Hale's coolly slick smile out of his memory, the blood on his teeth as he loomed over Lydia, or the way he seemed to look at Stiles even when he  _wasn't_ looking at him.  _You must be Stiles_ has featured in his nightmares more than once. He's never seen Derek as angry as when he learns of Peter's offer to turn Stiles, and Stiles never tells anyone how much he actually considered it.

 

Scott holds up a placating hand. 'Sorry.'

 

There's the sound of an engine revving through the trees, and seconds later, Lydia's Porsche comes barreling down the drive in a cloud of dust. Eight months out of the year it sits in a garage in Southern California – Lydia doesn't take it with her when she's off at school – but she always brings it out when she comes back to Beacon Hills for the summer. It's her way of telling her old friends, her old classmates, a big  _fuck you_ , that she's finally done with playing the airheaded jock's girlfriend, done with their popularity game.

 

She slides to a stop in a hail of gravel and dirt and Stiles rolls his eyes good naturedly as he coughs and waves away the cloud around him. His mood lasts until she steps out of the car. Alone.

 

'Where's Jackson?'

 

Lydia's jaw is tight when she answers. 'His parents came.  _Family_ vacation.'

 

'Fuck,' Alison whispers, which actually surprises no one, because while she's still sweet in a way Stiles isn't sure the rest of them ever were, balancing life between a pack of werewolves while still doing hunts with her father has given her a mouth like a sailor.

 

'Phone?' Stiles asks, but Lydia shakes her head.

 

'You know how they are. Confiscated because it's family time. And they don't get reception on that stupid island anyway.'

 

Alison curses again and Scott kicks at the gravel.

 

'How long?'

 

'A freaking  _week_ , Stiles. I told him to call as soon as they start back, and Scott would come get him.' Jackson's parents have yet to forgive Lydia for refusing to reconcile with Jackson way back in eleventh grade – and truthfully, neither have her parents – so she's something of a person non grata at his house, regardless of the fact that Jackson readily admits resuming the relationship would have been akin to the Titanic trying to set sail again.

 

The thing is, Jackson is usually  _fine_ with his family, as long as he can balance them with pack time, or at least make a phone call to Derek if things start feeling sketchy, but a week – a whole week isolated with them is a recipe for disaster. Stiles doesn't completely understand why Jackson is like he is, because other than being kind of disinterested in the stuff Jackson likes, his parents seem to genuinely love him, but maybe it has to do with the fact they bandy the word 'adopted' around like candy, so Jackson can never forget he isn't  _actually_ theirs. Whatever the reason, they wreck him faster than anything Stiles has ever seen.

 

He still remembers the first time it happens. Jackson is...better...after getting the bite. He's still kind of douchy and entitled – that's just  _Jackson_ – but it's lost its bitter, caustic edge, an edge that Stiles finally gets is driven by fear and not hate, at least not hate for anyone but himself. He laughs at jokes made at his expense instead of freaking out and hitting people, and he actually spends the whole summer helping Stiles with lacrosse, so that when senior year comes, Stiles is legitimately picked for first line, and not just stuck there because of a pink eye epidemic.

 

The first three months of Jackson and Lydia's transition – she wakes up two weeks after Peter's attack, finds herself alone and naked in the woods on the night of a full moon and it's only by luck (and Stiles' amazing detective skills) that Derek finds her and coaxes her back to the house – the first three months run smooth, until a night in early spring.

 

Everyone is sprawled across Derek's living room, doing homework or just generally dicking around, except for Jackson, because his aunt and uncle are in town and his presence has been required at a family dinner. Stiles has just skunked Lydia at Crazy Eights, when every werewolf in the room freezes before jumping to their feet and staring at the door. He and Alison exchange glances, completely clueless, and Stiles ventures a 'Um...guys?' before realizing all the wolves look  _distressed_ . Scott actually whines, deep in his throat.

 

Another ten seconds pass, where no one moves and neither Alison nor Stiles can bring themselves to break the silence, and then there's pounding on the porch and the door crashes open. Jackson is there, sucking in breaths and completely wolfed out. For the first time in forever, Stiles is actually  _scared_ of one of the pack, because he can see right off Jackson isn't really there, it's just the wolf, and it looks  _angry_ .

 

Derek steps forward, his eyes glowing alpha red, but his voice is gentle. 'It's okay, Jackson. We're here. It's okay.'

 

And Jackson,  _holy shit!_ , Jackson takes a swing at Derek, and Derek tackles him, drags him across the floor and pins him in the middle of the room.

 

'Scott! Lydia!' he orders and Stiles thinks for one terrifying minute he's calling the pack in to rip Jackson apart and he frantically looks around for something to distract them. Jackson's out of control, but he doesn't want him to  _die_ .

 

Instead, Derek maneuvers until he's sitting with Jackson's back propped against his chest, and Scott and Lydia drop to their knees on either side of him, butt up right against Jackson's side, and bury their faces in his neck.

 

Abstractly, Stiles mind identifies what's happening. He's seen the pack scent each other individually, has had the somewhat disturbing experience of having them scent  _him_ , but he's never actually seen the puppy piling first hand. A part of him thinks it should be disturbing, but apparently he's been hanging around werewolves too long, because he can only feel grateful it seems to be working. Jackson's stopped struggling, and he's looking a little more human. His chest, though, is still sucking in air like he's suffocating, and the whines and whimpers tearing their way out his throat aren't subsiding.

 

Then Derek barks, 'Stiles. Alison.  _Now_ .'

 

One hundred and one snarky responses spring to Stiles' mind, some funny, and some downright hurtful, but even without heightened senses, he can tell Jackson is in  _pain_ , and apparently somewhere in the last few months he's decided Jackson is akin to Scott, someone he can't let hurt, no matter how much of an asshole he is to him. So he doesn't hesitate to join the pile of bodies on the floor, and since Alison has already gotten the best spot – sprawled on top of his legs, Stiles scootches in underneath Lydia, and rests his head on Jackson's stomach, his arm slung loosely over his hip.

 

Really, this should all be much weirder than it is, but he can feel Lydia breathing behind him, and Derek's forearm brushing against his hair, and when he looks over at Scott he sees his eyes are closed. He follows suit, and listens as, over the minutes, Jackson's breathing evens out and falls into sync with everyone else's.

 

They never really talk about it, because there doesn't seem to be a need; there's a subtle shift in the pack afterward, like maybe the question about his and Alison's place has been settled with finality, and he feels okay with that, too. It happens again, and again, but as the years pass, time between Jackson's freakouts stretch longer and longer. College helps, and maybe age, but Stiles doesn't know if Jackson will ever be completely comfortable with his human family like he is with the pack.

 

And he's absolutely sure this family vacation is going to go nowhere good.

 

They grab sodas from the cooler on the porch and slouch across the stairs for the next half hour or so, Lydia filling them in on her current projects and the job offers she's already getting. There isn't even a question of her taking the one in France – it's too far away from them for her comfort. Lydia's still going to change the world, she just has a few different priorities these days. They pointedly don't mention Jackson, and finally Scott and Lydia both perk up, picking out the sound of Derek's camaro long before Alison and Stiles.

 

When he parks his ridiculously little car – Stiles has repeatedly told him he should get a mini-van instead, because pack trips would be so much easier, but Derek still doesn't see the humor – Scott and Lydia practically skip off the porch to crowd around his door. The second he exits, he sweeps his eyes over the pack and jumps straight to the point.

 

'Where's Jackson?'

 

Stiles shakes his head. 'Parents. A week. No phone.'

 

Derek nods but barely pauses as he moves through the pack, briefly wrapping his hand around the back of each of their necks as he goes, in greeting, in reassurance. 'He's okay. He'll be fine. He knows what to do.' Lydia and Scott visibly relax, and even Alison looks relieved. He reaches Stiles last, and keeps his hand on his neck, using it to steer him toward the front door, Alison, Lydia and Scott at their heels. 

 

Stiles tries very hard not to notice the heat on his skin. Denial has served him well for years, and he doesn't see why that should stop now.

 

Derek has just inserted his key in the lock when, all in tandem, the werewolves go stock still and then flip around to face the yard. Stiles can hear it, the low hum of a heavy duty engine as it cuts down the road.

 

'Expecting someone?' he asks Derek lightly, even though he knows the answer before it comes.

 

'No.'

 

It doesn't take long for the dark blue SUV to make its appearance, and it stops just inside the treeline, well back from the house. As soon as a door opens, Stiles can practically  _see_ the hackles rise on the pack, and Scott shoves Alison behind him at the same time Derek lets go of Stiles' neck and steps in front of him.

 

'Werewolves,' Lydia spits out, and he sees three sets of claws extend. 


	3. The Usual Suspects

Kellen watches the trees flashing by the window as the SUV bounces along the rutted road. It's easy to find, once they get directions from a harried looking woman manning the gas station register, along with the muttered commentary she has no idea they can hear, as they walk back out to their car.

 

_Why anyone would still be in that creepy mausoleum..._

 

Kellen feels it, deeply and irrationally, the deaths of this family he never knew and never will know. The online articles were sensational, photos splayed in horrifying color, of the huge house charred beyond repair, pictures of those lost, smilingly mockingly up from the laptop screen. Eleven people. Eleven of his mother's kin wiped out in seconds, one injured and comatose, and two children who were lucky enough to be at school, and who disappear within days.

 

At least, that's what the initial reports are. There's more though, as they get into the recent past. It's not an accident after all, no electrical fire that tragically takes away a family. Arson, by an insane woman, and then six years of nothing, before Laura Hale, one of those lucky survivors, turns up dead and in parts in the Beacon Hill Woods. There's a tabloid that gets a bootleg picture of one half of the body and posts it online – it goes viral and is waiting for Kellen and Adam's search, and Kellen swallows vomit down at the sight. The following articles are murky, confused – the official story is that Kate Argent returns to finish what she starts, kills Laura and Peter Hale and is killed in return, leaving Derek Hale the sole survivor.

 

That's the official story, the one for the police files.

 

There are facts missing - the pieces to put the whole together, the time line of exactly how it went down - but for Kellen, it's easy enough to read between the lines. Hunters found the Hales and attempted to extinguish them. Twice. He doesn't know if one of his mother's family crossed the line, brought the firestorm down, but even so, this Kate Argent broke every law known to wolf and hunter. She killed children. She killed _babies_. The wolf in him howls in satisfaction at her death, and his human side can't disagree.

 

Adam ostensibly lets the whole thing roll off his back, shrugging in a way that says it's sad but it's not like he knew them, but Kellen isn't fooled. They may have internalized their mother's definition of pack as family, but there's always been the unspoken rule of blood; even if the pack went all to hell, Kellen and Adam and Elizabeth would still have each other.

 

And these people? These people are _blood,_ and it's easy enough to see the tightness in Adam's neck, despite the casualness of his tone. And hunters...hunters are enough to raise the fighting instinct of any wolf. Too many of them have gone off the reservation these days, forgotten the old agreements and codes, and kill with an indiscriminate aim. But children...children are a new low, even for them. He worries an open war is coming.

 

The newspapers say nothing of what happens to Derek Hale, and it's not until the gas station attendant that they have any real confirmation that they're not completely chasing ghosts. Kellen wonders how he's managed, left bereft of pack and family. A part of him thinks they should take him, bring him back home, but the strongest likelihood is that he's inherited the position of Alpha, and there's no reality where two Alphas can co-exist in the same pack.

 

All these thoughts are swimming through his head as they finally break through the tree line and come into view of the house. Adam immediately brakes and parks, both to give them time to decide what to do next, as well as because it's readily apparent that their arrival has been anticipated. Even from this distance, Kellen can see the tense lines and ready stances of the five people watching warily from the porch. He easily recognizes Derek Hale, and for some reason the dark haired girl clutching the hand of an equally dark haired boy is tickling at his memory, but he can't place her.

 

His cousin has built a pack, then, and something in Kellen relaxes at the revelation that Derek isn't alone. On the other hand...

 

He knew his cousin was young, but his pack – god, they're just _children_. He wonders how Derek managed to pull this off, keep them on the reservation, keep them from going crazy, when he's had no real training or qualifications for this, no one to turn to for advice. They all look so stunningly vulnerable, from the boy whose neck his cousin's hand rests on, to the lone redhead, jaw clenched in defiance. He feels a twinge when he thinks this must be much like his mother was, when she first formed her pack. A child, leading children.

 

He turns to Adam. 'I should get out first. Otherwise they'll think we're trying to establish we're the dominant pack.'

 

Adam just looks at him. 'We _are_ the dominant pack.'

 

It's the simple truth. Even without being able to scent them yet, and even being lesser in number, it's easy to tell they're stronger. They have the experience, the age – even if Adam weren't a powerful Alpha already, these factors would lend them the upper hand.

 

'We want their help, not a fight, remember?'

 

Adam narrows his eyes and then shrugs. 'Out at the same time, then?'

 

He doesn't wait for Kellen's agreement before he grabs the folder of pictures, pushes the door open and steps out, hearing his brother mirror him on the other side. He keeps a steady eye on the porch, watches the shift in dynamics; his cousin steps in front of the boy he's been touching, at the same time the other male shifts in front of his female. Adam immediately marks them as mated pairs, just as quickly as he scans and dismisses the vapid redhead, halter dress blowing in the wind as she closes ranks with the rest of the pack, their extended claws the only sign that the three wolves are prepared for conflict. He smells the scent of werewolf mixed with human, attaches scent to face, and picks out the faint odor of another wolf that isn't here. He smells fear and worry and aggression and curiosity, an expected bouquet when foreign packs meet.

 

In the seconds it's taken him to gather this in, Kellen has come to his side, and they move forward. Kellen has his hands spread out and open in the international sign of peace, and Adam lets him take the lead.

 

'We're not here for a fight. There's no challenge. We're just looking for some information.'

 

No one on the porch moves, except for the boy Derek is shielding, who keeps poking his head around his cousin, to stare intently at them. Derek glares at Adam, his eyes flashing to red and back to green again, while Adam's do the same. There's no question for either of them as to who is leading which pack. He and Kellen stop a good five feet from the first porch step as Kellen starts again.

 

'I'm Kellen. This is Adam. We're just passing through; we're looking for someone.' They have agreed to hold their cards close, at least until they can better assess the situation. They came in blind, with no idea if Derek was even approachable, or if he'd turned rabid, like many wolves who've lost pack become. Most of those, the hunters never know about; werewolves tend to police their own, and taking down a wolf gone mad is a mercy killing for everyone involved. Adam can see now that Derek has obviously avoided that path, but Adam's not offering up everything just yet.

 

Derek unbends enough to nod stiffly and make stilted introductions. His voice is tight and low, but not as graveled as Adam might have expected. For all that he can see that his cousin is attempting a steady, hard line, a hint of uncertainty bleeds through. There's strength in his cousin's pack, but he doesn't know if they would survive an actual challenge to their territory rights. Not yet.

 

'Derek Hale,' the younger Alpha says, short and to the point. 'Scott,' he inclines his head to the couple at his right, 'and his mate Allison. Lydia,' the redhead with the over the top curves smiles, managing to look both sultry and cold at the same time, but Adam's already looking back at Derek, and so he misses the way her eyes narrow dangerously at his dismissal.

 

'And Stiles.' Stiles lifts a hand and waves over Derek's shoulder, offering a 'What's up?' before Derek slaps his hand back down.

 

Adam carefully conceals his surprise at Derek's failure to give Stiles the label of 'mate.' Everything about them screams 'bonded,' but Adam must have read the situation wrong, and looking closer now, he can see Stiles carries no visible mate mark.

 

Interesting.

 

The hair on the back of Derek's neck is standing up, and not just because he can feel Stiles' breath blowing across it, hot and dry and maddeningly distracting. Kellen and Adam...they're not lying about their purpose, but there's something they're also not saying. Something they're keeping back. They've observed protocol, announced their presence as soon as they entered Hale territory, but he can't shake the feeling of danger. Maybe it's just the result of two Alphas in such close proximity; maybe his wolf can't help but see it as a threat. He doesn't know. There's so goddamn much he doesn't know, wasn't prepared for, and he's perpetually afraid his ignorance will one day hurt his pack. They trust him too much, he thinks, for someone who's blindly feeling his way on bravado and instinct alone.

 

Derek is so intent on keeping on eye on these strange wolves, on making sure he's prepared to put himself between them and his pack, that at first he doesn't even realize Stiles has moved from behind him, circling back to the far edge of the porch. It's only when he vaults over the railing, drawing the attention of everyone, that Derek sees he's moved far past his ability to grab him, to jerk him back to safety behind him. His wolf panics, wants to howl and race after him, but even if he could, even if he had given in to the wolf back when it first met up with his human desire for Stiles, he can't. Can't let these strangers know exactly how important Stiles is. He can't give them that leverage.

 

Instead he growls a low, 'Stiles,' in a voice meant to jerk him right back to the porch. Of course, Stiles, being Stiles, does no such thing. He waves a negligent hand behind him as he trots into the yard for god knows what reason, and breezes out -

 

'Don't mind me. Carry on. Besides, you can get to them way faster than they can get to me, right?' He either doesn't realize or doesn't care that he's undermining Derek's position in front of the other wolves – Stiles might do either without a thought – but further argument would make his rebellion even more obvious. And he's right. If either werewolf moves in Stiles' direction, Derek's pack would be on them long before they reached their target. Instead of doing all the things he wants to, he concentrates on his duty as Alpha and ostensibly dismisses Stiles in favor of grilling the two men.

 

'What do you want?'

 

The darker haired man – Kellen – holds his hands out again, palms up, while the other – the Alpha – slips a picture from a folder.

 

'We're looking for someone. Have you spoken to her? Seen her?' Derek takes the photo from the still silent Alpha and takes a cursory look. A woman, thirty-five, maybe forty. Beautiful, but no one he knows. He shakes his head and attempts to hand it back, but this time Adam speaks.

 

'Look again. Be sure.'

 

Derek bristles under the clear command. Stronger or not – and the other Alpha _is_ , Derek can almost taste the ozone of power in the air – he was not made to submit. He hears the instinctive rumbles from Scott and Lydia to his right – he's not sure they're even aware of the knee jerk reaction – and then Kellen in interjecting again.

 

'Please. She's our mother. She's missing.'

 

The challenge running down his spine puffs and dissipates immediately, but before he can reply, a sharp whistle rings out and he jerks his head up to see Stiles, far back in the yard, emerging from behind the SUV. He pulls his fingers from the corners of his mouth.

 

'Hey,' he shouts – probably for Allison's benefit – 'How are you guys related to Derek?'

 

Both Kellen and Adam remain poker faced, while Derek's momentary good will evaporates in an instant. 'What?'

 

Stiles gestures to the back of the car. 'The license plate? H-A-L-E-Y-S? That's either _Haley's_ or _Hale Yes_ , right? Neither of you strike me as the Haley type, and well, Occam's Razor being what it is...' He's been walking as he speaks and he's almost back to the group when he finishes, and just like that, the blank, bad-ass expression – Adam – and the YodaDahlifuckingLama look – Kellen – disappear, as Kellen rolls his eyes and elbows Adam in the side.

 

'You just _had_ to get a personalized plate.'

 

'What? That thing's awesome. You're just jealous you didn't think of it first.' It all looks so normal, so achingly familial, in a way Derek has missed for years, that he almost lets his guard down. But he needs answers and he needs them now.

 

'Hey!' Derek's voice is low and filled with a thousand dangerous things, and he feels his pack draw up against his back, all except Stiles, who has idiotically put himself right in the line of fire. He catches his eye as he continues, gives a small jerk to the side in instruction, but Stiles...of course Stiles ignores him and smiles blandly.

 

'Who. Are. You.' He grits each word out, any earlier sympathy dissipated.

 

Kellen and Adam sober and exchange a look, and Kellen moves back, a sign of submission to his Alpha. Apparently playtime and diplomacy is over. The older man doesn't drop his eyes from Derek's as he speaks, and Derek holds them, even though every instinct is screaming that he needs to get Stiles back with the pack. If something like this ever happens again, he's handcuffing the idiot to the porch.

 

'We're Adam and Kellen Hale. The woman in the picture, our mother, is Elizabeth Hale, Adam Hale's twin sister.

 

Hearing the name Adam Hale pulls duel ropes of pain through Derek, both for his father, and for his baby brother, barely four at the time the fire takes him. Most of Derek's nightmares of the fire have featured the sound of his brother and Melly's screams, and he has to swallow through the thickness in his throat before he can properly spit back -

 

'You should do your research better. My father and uncles all died in this house. He didn't have a sister. _Who are you_?'

 

He waits for an increase in heart rate, for the smell of lies and sweat, but all he gets is Adam opening the folder again and passing over another picture, while saying 'We didn't know either. Not until she disappeared and we went through her things. We found this, among other things'

 

The photo is definitely a younger version of his father – Derek has one, half singed family album that was pulled from the post-fire wreckage, jealously guarded in the trunk of his Camaro – with his arm around a childish duplicate of the woman in the other picture. He flips to the back, reads _Elizabeth and Adam, Peter's 8_ _th_ _birthday_ , and feels something crack inside him.

 

He doesn't know when it happens, but somehow Stiles is right in front of him, between his body and those of...those of the men who are claiming kinship to his pack. Derek knows he needs to focus, needs to pull himself upright and demand answers, but he's frozen, eyes glued to the picture in his hand.

 

From somewhere far away he feels Lydia's palm on his back and Stiles' arm on his shoulder, and hears Stiles say jauntily, 'So, you guys should probably come inside the house, yeah?'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't already guessed, I do a lot of character development - there's a reason this is a projected 30 chapters. So I apologize in advance to those of you who are mainly into action. There will be plenty of that coming up, but I tend to like to set a strong foundation first.
> 
> Also, I'm well aware I added an extra person to the number in the Hale house fire; just bear with me;)


	4. The Magnificent Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit to cedelede for the observation on the differences between Laura, Peter and Derek's Alpha forms; I've taken liberties with the final form Derek settles on, seeing as how this is a season 2 AU and Derek dealt better with his new found power than he has so far in canon.

Lydia holds her hand out in front of her, ostensibly examining the state of her nail polish while in actuality keeping a close eye on what's happening around her. Derek is sitting ramrod straight at the end of the couch, flipping through picture after picture, his face devoid of any emotion whatsoever, while his _cousins_ stand several feet away, arms crossed and legs slightly spread, like they're bouncers at some kind of biker bar.

 

Allison is sitting on the arm of the couch opposite Derek, with Scott sitting in front of her, a solid block between the foreign wolves in the room. At any other time, Allison, or more likely Lydia, would have made a cutting and pointed remark to Scott about Allison's ability to protect herself, but this has nothing to do with male or female or sexism; this is about creatures with the ability to rend humans limb from limb, and with their Alpha unsettled, Scott can't decide how he's supposed to react. It makes him edgy, aggressive, and instinctive in his need to keep his mate protected.

 

Lydia feels Derek's unease just as deeply, but she's better at Scott with control. She always has been. After all, she's Lydia Martin, and no little case of Lycanthropy is going to derail her for long.

 

Stiles is sitting cross-legged on the floor exactly halfway between Derek and the other Hales, spinning restlessly, his hands and arms twitching at his sides, like he can't quite decide where he should go or what he should be doing. It's easy enough to play off as his usual inability to keep still, but Lydia knows where he wants to be, has known it ever since last summer, when Stiles drunk dials her at midnight, from some spot in the forest that he's somehow decided is a good place to consume half a bottle of his father's Jack Daniels.

 

Lydia never finds out exactly what it was that drove him to that excess, but she manages to locate him before he drinks himself to death, drags him back to her house, and tucks him into a pallet on her floor (drunk boys who aren't drinking over her do not get the privilege of using her bed). He babbles the entire time, and at one point confirms for her a thing she's long suspected but never quite known for sure.

 

He wakes up the next morning with a massive hangover and give no sign he remembers sighing into her neck about hazel eyes and stubbled chins and leather jackets, so she says nothing to remind him. It's almost a shame; the old Lydia would never have let such leverage go to waste. Then again, the old Lydia didn't have friends, she had pawns. The old Lydia wasn't as smart as she thought she was.

 

'I've never seen any of these. Never heard her name mentioned. Ever.' Derek's voice has returned to his usual hard calm, he's gotten most of his emotions back under control, too. Scott's shoulders relax and he laces his fingers with Allison's as she rubs her cheek against his spine. But before Scott reflects his Alpha's shift in mood, even before Lydia herself dials her inner tension back, she sees Stiles' jitters cease and his hands come to rest on his knees. She doubts he realizes it, doubts he has any clue he's more in tune with Derek's moods than her or Scott or Jackson, although common sense says the Betas should know first.

 

Boys. Idiots. The lot of them.

 

'As far as we can tell, she was on her own by the time she was fifteen. She had me right before she turned seventeen, started her pack about a year later, and Kellen was born soon after. We don't know what happened. She never told us.'

 

Derek nods slowly. 'She was an Alpha then?'

 

Adam nods, a quirk in his mouth that conveys the answer should be obvious, and Lydia barely keeps from sneering in return, the cocky conceit rolling off him enough to make her want to vomit.

 

'So was my father. They were twin Alphas. In the same pack.'

 

'Plan on sharing with the class, boys?' Lydia's had enough of the dramatic one liners; Derek does it enough without adding another only semi-verbal idiot into the mix.

 

Adam doesn't even bother looking her way, or acknowledging Scott's sound of agreement, and that's the last straw. Lydia is used to people dismissing her on first impressions, takes great delight in proving them wrong and bringing them to their knees, but it's not that which pushes her over the edge. It's Adam's disdain for the entire pack, obvious in way he sneers at Stiles' spastic chattering, the raise of his eyebrow when Derek doesn't call him to order, like Derek should be some Peter-style dictator.

 

Her pack may be made up of idiots and Adderall addicts and emotionally stunted Alphas, but they're  _hers_ , and no one insults her family and gets away with it. If she's honest with herself – and she always is, about the places she's shallow, the places she's weak, the places that, if they're hit, will crack her wide open and destroy her – she knows Adam is devastatingly attractive, all muscles and hard lines, and power oozing from him in ways that would make lesser wolves roll over. But Lydia has dated her fair share of pretty boys, even ones like him - tattooed and rebel without a cause bad - and if all she wanted was a beautiful face, she'd date her reflection – at least she knows she can be entertaining. No, Lydia has  _standards_ , and having more than two brain cells to rub together is one of them. It often makes her wish she could have loved Stiles, back when he was hers for the taking, but Lydia has never been good at forcing her heart to do what she wants.

 

Still, Adam needs a lesson. He's good looking enough she's sure he's used to women tripping over themselves to get his attention, knows he'll figure out exactly what she's trying to do – or what he thinks she's trying to do – but knowing won't save him, any more than it had saved Jackson or Stiles, the two people in the world who thought they knew her best in high school, and who truly know her best now.

 

It's not arrogance, not really. She knows this game like the back of her hand, and Adam will fall for vain, shallow, air-headed Lydia, will be on his knees for her before she's done, and then..then she'll kick him in the metaphorical balls. Maybe the real ones, too. She hasn't decided yet. Men like him? They're just begging to be taken down a peg or two, so really, she's doing community service.

 

In the end it's Kellen who addresses her question, albeit by directing it back to Derek. 'It's all tied together somehow, of course. But none of us have all the pieces. The only person alive who does is our mother, and we need to find her.'

 

'Good luck,' Derek says, but like he really means it. 'She hasn't been here, though. I'm not sure why you thought she would have.'

 

'She was heading this way when she disappeared. We thought maybe, with what was happening...she might have gone to family for help.' Kellen exchanges looks with Adam, and at his small nod he fills Derek in on what they knew, what they didn't. Tells him about the missing wolves and the one pack that's vanished entirely.

 

'Again,' Derek says, and Kellen sees the stubborn set of his mouth. 'I'm not sure what you think we can do. Go back to your mother's pack. Get help there.'

 

Adam breaks in, releases the last bit of information they'd held back. Because now they really are desperate, desperate enough to bargain, if not to beg, for any help they can get.

 

'They're gone. The last we heard from them was when Nathan told us about our mother. None of them are picking up their cells. Last night we had an area pack stop by the house. No one is there. Three day old food is sitting on the table. Just like the Rock Hill pack.'

 

'I'm sorry,' Derek says, 'but this is not our - '

 

Stiles spins around on the floor to face Derek, his mouth already moving as his hands fly out from his sides. 'You're kidding. You're kidding, right? Dude, this is your family! Like...family, family! The kind you didn't think you had any left of! And their _mom_ is missing! Like...like when Laura was missing! You should relate! Plus...plus...someone after werewolves? Isn't that _everybody's_ problem?'

 

He's breathing hard when he stops, staring intently at Derek, who is staring just as hard back at him. Kellen suppresses a snort, because this kid has balls, openly challenging an Alpha that he isn't mated to. Challenging and _winning_ , if the way Derek's posture is starting to relax is any indication. Mated may be a relative term here, though. Stiles smells so strongly of Derek and Derek so strongly of Stiles, that it's hard to separate the two, even if none of the scent is that of sex. Kellen is good at picking apart the intricacies of connections, of how packs function and relate, and the other three members of his cousin's pack are still, relaxed, simply waiting for Stiles and Derek to come to an agreement. Formal mate or no, Derek's pack unconsciously recognizes Stiles as such.

 

He thinks Derek would have agreed to help them anyway, but Adam picks now to interject into the staring contest. 'You need us just as much as we need you.' Stiles collapses on his back across the floor, flings his hands over his eyes and mutters _stupid_ _werewolves_.

 

Derek's eyebrow cocks. 'Is that so?'

 

Adam doesn't rise to the bait, instead continues calmly. 'Your family died, before you or your sister were trained. It's obvious -' he takes a sweeping look at the room. '– that there are things you don't know. I was raised to be an Alpha. I can teach you. In exchange for your pack's help, you'll get the information you need so you keep your pack together by more than luck.'

 

It's a little heavy handed, but Adam's only speaking the truth. While what Derek is doing seems to have worked, there are always new challenges, new threats – like this – and the more he knows, the more likely it is the pack will survive. Derek looks at Adam a very long time before slowly nodding.

 

'I'm still not sure what you think we can do. But we agree.'

 

Stiles though...Stiles thinks he gets it. As together as Kellen and Adam may be, they're all alone, and even if they don't show it, they're lost. Stiles knows what it's like to lose a mother, and if there was anyone, anywhere that could get her back for him, he would beg, plead, bribe or threaten for the slimmest hope she'd be returned. And even though he's putting up a good front, Stiles is sure Derek understands, too. He thinks this might be one of those wolf vs. wolf, territory things, where Derek wants to make sure they know the pack can't be pushed around.

People who joke about teenage boys and their need to compare penises really don't know anything. Werewolves are ten times worse. The weeks after Scott had officially claimed Allison as his mate had been...disturbing. And a little disgusting, seeing as how Stiles had accidentally walked in on them more than once. His stomach twists a little when he thinks about the fact that one day Derek will do the same. Will find some girl he'll want to bring into the pack and make a life with. Stiles will deal though. He always deals. It's what he's good at, and inconvenient emotions aside, this is his pack, and he wants them to be happy.

 

Adam nods and pulls a small, plastic baggy from his back pocket, the kind beads or drug samples are kept in. The top is zipped shut and there's a small amount of bluish powder inside. Adam grasps it gingerly between his thumb and forefinger and holds it out.

 

'This is all we have. Our mother found it. It's some kind of drug. It disorients werewolves, renders us incapable. We've had it analyzed, but, there's nothing that would cause that effect.'

 

Ignoring the low rumble from Derek, Stiles stands and holds his hand out. He's human, so he's safe from whatever hoodoo this is. Adam glances at Derek, but still passes the packet over, and Stiles steps back and away before unzipping the corner and bringing it to his nose.

 

It smells sweet, like sugar and syrup, and something spicy, but nothing stands out; not that he thought it would. But there's one person who might know. He re-closes the packet when he realizes all the wolves are mouth breathing, and looks pointedly at Allison.

 

'Do you think you can take this to your dad? Ask him if he knows anything?' Their truce with Mr. Argent is solid. They keep to their side and he keeps to his, but the whole thing is awkward and Allison has said more than once that she and her father simply don't discuss anything about the pack. Stiles has been dragged to a few very, very uncomfortable dinners with Scott and Allison and Mr. Argent, so he wholly supports that arrangement. But if there's a new weapon the Hunters are using, he would know, and they need all the help they can get.

 

She does a weird combination of a nod and a head shake as she replies. 'He's out of town until next week. There's...business...in L.A. I would be with him but –' she shrugs, '– first week of summer.' Scott grins and rubs his face in her neck. 'But when he gets back –' she hesitates. '– it might be better if it was you, Stiles. You know all this reminds him of...'

 

She trails off when Stiles nods, because yeah, he knows exactly what all of them remind Mr. Argent of, and exactly what Allison coming to him with pack needs is a recollection of. Even Stiles doesn't want to think about that, about Victoria's face in those final minutes, about Chris and Allison choosing sides against their family and blood. He shoves it to the side when he sees something in Kellen's face go hard.

 

'What?'

 

Kellen is confused, at first, at the conversation between Stiles and Allison, about why her father would know anything a world class lab wouldn't, but then there's talk of business, and he realizes with a rush of anger exactly why she had looked familiar. He's seen her face in newspaper photos. He takes a step back, puts a hand on Adam's arm.

 

'She's a hunter. She's an _Argent_.'

 

Scott moves in front of Allison so fast that she almost falls to the floor, his claws out and his fangs snapping, like he's expecting a fight. Kellen wonders what kind of people he's used to dealing with, that would make him think they'd attack a pack they've just made a bargain with, in their own home. Luckily, no one else in Derek's pack seems to be escalating the situation, although Stiles has somehow stumbled his way back in between everyone; at least until Derek grabs him by the arm and yanks him to his side.

 

Derek is standing, silent. Still. Waiting. Adam doesn't disappoint.

 

'You allow a _hunter_ in your pack? From the line that murdered our family?'

 

The girl in question looks like she's about to cry, and rationally Kellen knows she's much too young to have been involved in the fire, and likely the aftermath, but she's still chosen to follow her family's footsteps, and he doesn't understand any rational that would allow her here.

 

Derek, while still keeping Stiles behind him, grabs Scott by the shoulder, shakes him, quick and rough. The fangs and claws retract, leaving just the glowing eyes as the only sign the Beta is right at the edge of shifting in order to protect his mate.

 

'She's pack.' Derek says.

 

'She's a hunter!' Adam has more fury for the hunters than most, although he hides it well. Right before he fully came into the Alpha, when he was still a teen, there had been a girl, another wolf.... Even though she went rabid, crossed lines that would have forced them to put her down if the hunters hadn't, Kellen knows Adam still hasn't let it go. It's easier for him to blame the hunters than to focus on a once broken heart.

 

'Her father follows the code. They don't hunt these woods.'

 

'She kills our kind.'

 

Kellen sees Derek take a deep breath, look at Allison with something like an apology, before turning back to Adam.

 

'She killed her mother to protect our pack. Don't question her place with us.'

 

And really, what do you say to that? Adam's stance softens and he allows his head to incline, a formal show of acceptance for the other Alpha's words. Scott and the redhead...Lydia?...have convened around Allison in a way that almost blocks her from view, and an uncomfortable silence descends until Stiles clears his throat and jabs Derek in the ribs, startling him enough that he releases his grip.

 

'Wow, so. Awkward. Any other things we should get out in the open? You guys got...ah..got any vampires in the family? Have some embarrassing YouTube videos out there? Because let me tell you, this one time we managed to get Scott drunk and he started singing karaoke, and that thing got thousands of views. I thought Mr. Argent was going to...' he trails off, having circled right back to what he was trying to avoid.

 

'So. Planning session?'

 

Kellen and Adam shift restlessly, and at first Stiles thinks something has happened to renew the dissipated tension, that somehow a new argument is about to commence, but Derek huffs, still close enough to Stiles that he can feel the gust of breath across the shell of his ear.

 

'Not yet,' he says. He has a gleam in his eye, as close to playful as Derek ever gets – unless he and Stiles are playing Wii or PlayStation, or that one time they watched the _Hangover_ , but Stiles has been threatened if he ever shares that knowledge with anyone else – and he grins at his cousins.

 

'Long car trip.'

 

Adam nods, a similar anticipatory shine in sliding into his expression. 'Very.'

 

'Drove straight?'

 

'Three days.'

 

'Long time in a small space.'

 

Adam smiles. 'We could use a workout.'

 

Stiles rolls his eyes when he figures out where this is going. Werewolf playtime, hip hip hooray. Yes, okay, secretly he loves it, loves watching the pack transform and scuffle and act like idiots as they train or just work out tension, but it's a double edged sword, because it then becomes an exercise in not staring at a half-naked Derek, in keeping his heart rate slow and steady, so that someone doesn't pick up on the fact the way his blood gushes through his veins has nothing to do with excitement for the fight, or worry someone will get hurt, but is instead all about the unreasonable way his body reacts to seeing Derek in his element.

 

If the world were a fair place, all this werewolf business would simply remind him of Peter, and of the number of times he's almost died at werewolf hands, but Stiles' world has never been a fair place, and nothing is ever straightforward.

 

By the time he shakes himself back to reality, everyone is moving to the backyard, where the wide expanse of open space makes a perfect place for just about everything, from pick up games of lacrosse, to cook outs, to night games and lazily watching clouds. Stiles follows and plops down on the porch next to Allison. He slings an arm over her shoulder.

 

'You alright?'

 

She smiles, and it's sweet, tinged with a bit of sadness. 'Yeah. I can't really blame them, you know? Sometimes I just forget - '

 

'Hey!' He noogies her head and she laughs and scrambles back to escape. 'You're one of us, no take backs!'

 

Lydia leans against the back porch railing and lazily waves her hand at where Scott, Derek, Kellen and Adam are already circling each other, even while pulling off shirts.

 

'You guys go ahead. I don't want to ruin my nails.'

 

Stiles jerks his head around to look at her, so fast that he nearly gives himself whiplash, because what the hell? Lydia loves this shit probably more than anybody. Loves the fact that while she's not the biggest of the pack, she can, through brains and control and sheer terrifying skill, beat the crap out of everyone but Derek nine tenths of the time. He's sure he's misheard, but no, there she is, absentmindedly twirling her fingers in her hair and looking utterly bored.

 

She catches him looking and raises one eyebrow, and oh god, he knows that look in her eyes. She's doing something. Something that's probably going to end up in blood and pain and tears for whomever has been unlucky enough to piss her off. He rakes his eyes over the candidates, but can't think of who would qualify, and before he can really ponder, he's distracted by Derek, lazily stripping his shirt over his head and rolling his neck from side to side. It's hot enough that a light sheen of sweat has already started to pop out over his torso, and for half a minute Stiles starts drifting into his fantasy land, where Derek lets him pin him to the ground, and run his tongue over every inch of his body.

 

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly why Stiles has come to hate werewolf playtime.

 

Stiles jerks his head around before Derek can catch him looking. He ends up facing Kellen, right as his shift begins, and swallows a startled gasp, because oh my god, _his eyes_. Stiles is used to the unearthly iridescence of the werewolves' irises when they shift, the golds and greens, and then Derek's reds – the red that sometimes haunt both his nightmares and his best wet dreams - but Kellen's are nothing he's ever seen.

 

When the shift first starts, they shimmer to a glowing blue, reminiscent of Derek's, before he took the mantle of Alpha, but within seconds it's gone, the color darkening, so that by the time Kellen is fully shifted, his irises and pupils are indistinguishable, a solid circle of black that glitters in the center of each eye. And wow...just...wow. He'd thought Derek's reds were badass, but Kellen takes freaky werewolf to the next level. It reminds him just how little he knows of the world beyond their little pack, and he resolves to badger Kellen and Adam for every single detail of the wolves outside of Beacon Hills.

 

Then there's a growl to the side which forces Stiles' attention right back to Derek, where he's in full Alpha form, circling with Adam's Alpha, which is a silvery gray to Derek's black. And neither of them are anything like Peter's Alpha – thank God – or even what he remembered of Laura's body, but something uniquely their own, in Stiles' opinion, more wolf than werewolf, and he can never quite stop the way his heart skips at the power and strength and – manhood be damned – _beauty_ Derek's Alpha form carries.

 

Then the two Alpha's rush each other, while Scott and Kellen tussle in the background, and by the time everyone is exhausted and sweaty and laughing, dusk has started to fall. Derek drags out the grill and fires it up, and the group settles around the long picnic table Stiles had scavenged from Good Will two years ago.

 

Adam takes a deep swallow from a can of coke and wipes the back of his mouth with his hand. 'Do you know anybody who's good with computers?'

 


	5. The boy with the Galaga Tattoo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I do apologize for the length between this chapter and the last; some of you probably know I've gotten a little obsessed with the Stiles/Isaac pairing and have been doing some work with that, as well as the fact that I've been a wee bit pissy at Derek in canon, and had to work through that to get to the right headspace to write him again.
> 
> 2\. I hope you'll forgive me for one part of this chapter that is clearly self-indulgent. This may be a canon AU, but I needed to make sure my other babies were okay;)
> 
> 3\. I did mention this is a slow build, right? From this chapter on, the action side of the story will slowly start to pick up, as they gain more and more information.

The next morning, Kellen makes his way up the stairs from the basement. The house is deceptive. The visible part, above ground, is a shell, yes, condemnable by any county's regulation standards – the living room and kitchen are the only areas put into working order – but below ground there are catacombs; a family room, bedrooms, what was apparently at one point a safe room. It's the unseen that makes this house a home for his cousin's pack.

 

He's the first one awake; eating and talking had lasted until the early hours of morning, and Stiles is sprawled out on the living room couch, head hanging off the side and limbs starfished in every direction. His mouth is open and snores are emitting, soft and low. Out in the back there's a tent set up that he knows holds Allison and Scott. Derek sleeps in one of the rooms below ground, and Lydia is laid out on a mattress in the safe room, looking like she woke up, at some point in the middle of the night, to reapply her make up to picture perfection.

 

He heads to the kitchen and opens the refrigerator; digs around for a bit before pulling out milk, eggs, spinach and a hodgepodge of fruit. He's just added everything to the blender when Derek appears in the doorway, still dressed in sleep pants and a ratty t-shirt that looks a size too small for him and smells like Stiles. He's staring at the items on the table in abject horror.

 

Kellen points to the blender. “Want one?”

 

Derek snorts. “Pass.”

 

“Don't knock it,” he shrugs. “Protein, vitamins and minerals, good dose of chlorophyll...”

 

Derek opens a cabinet and pulls out a box of pop tarts. “Did you forget the part where we're werewolves?”

 

“Doesn't make us impervious to bad health.” He's had this argument over and over again with Adam, who, despite his years and years of school, can't seem to grasp the concept of healthy eating.

 

Four pop tarts go in the toaster oven – icing covered strawberry, with _sprinkles_ – and Derek swings around him to grab the milk. “Makes it a lot less likely though.”

 

It's true – Kellen can count on one hand the number of werewolves he's heard of, that have developed some human disease or condition, but it does happen. They're not immortal, and he believes in being respectful of the gifts his bloodline gives him.

 

He's reaching for the “on” switch of the blender, when he pauses to jerk his head toward the living room. “Will this wake him?”

 

“Stiles? Only person I know who can sleep through an earthquake, but wake up when somebody turns on his laptop without asking. He'll be fine.” His voice is terse and aggravated, at complete odds with the look on his face – amused and something approaching fond.

 

Kellen watches the smoothie blend down, and no, Stiles doesn't even budge. When he's poured a glassful, and Derek has taken two of the pop tarts from the toaster oven and devoured one, he gestures again to where Stiles is sprawled.

 

“What's his story? Allison I get; how did Stiles get mixed up in this?” _Why did you take an unconnected human into your pack_? That's the real question, of course. Humans have always had a place in werewolf packs, but it's usually through birth, or mating, and since Stiles isn't any of these, it's a fair question.

 

Derek joins Kellen by the door, watches as Stiles mutters in his sleep and scratches at his nose. When Stiles sleeps is the only time Derek feels completely comfortable looking at him, completely sure Stiles won't see something in his face Derek doesn't want him to see, doesn't want  _anyone_ to see.

 

“He's always been here. He was Scott's best friend when he was bitten. He helped him a hell of a lot more than I was able to at that point. Peter would have killed us all if Stiles hadn't been around. There's none of this pack who hasn't owed their life to him at some point. None of us.”

 

 _He saved me_ . Derek doesn't say it aloud, but it's true, and not just in the physical sense, in the way Stiles and he have somehow managed to save each others lives repeatedly. In those few heady weeks after he first becomes Alpha, when he's drunk on power, and before he's solidified this pack that will eventually become his family, he almost loses himself, loses the things that made him his parents' son; starts stalking the fringes of society, looking for every lost teenager that he can coax into accepting the bite and building his power base.

 

Stiles finds him one night, standing at the edge of a freshly dug grave, two sentences away from offering the bite to Isaac Lahey. It horrifies Derek, sometimes, what could have happened if Stiles hadn't somehow realized what was going on in his head, hadn't used every bit of ingenuity he's gifted with to track him down. But that night, for some reason, he listens to Stiles, even as hopped up on Alpha hormones as he is, and instead of becoming a werewolf, Isaac is pulled from the grave and convinced to go to Stiles' father.

 

Isaac's father goes to jail. Isaac is taken in by the Reyes family, eventually graduates, and goes off to college, and Derek gets his head on straight and turns his attention to where it should have been all along – Scott, Jackson, Lydia, and the two humans that are part of the package deal. Two summers later, the entire pack drives to San Francisco to attend the wedding of Isaac and Erica, the Reyes' oldest child. Isaac's best man is a kid named Boyd, who was somehow instrumental in giving Isaac the balls to ask Erica out in the first place. It's a good ending to Isaac's story, probably a better ending than the Alpha he was becoming could have given him. He still has the Christmas card Isaac and Erica sent last year, stuck to the refrigerator, with its picture of Isaac, a protective hand curled over Erica's barely rounded stomach.

 

It's a boy.

 

They name him Derek. 

 

He realizes Kellen is speaking to him, and he wonders how long he's been staring at Stiles, stuck in the past.

 

“What?”

 

Kellen waits for Derek to pull himself from where ever he's gone, inhales again to chase down that faint scent of strange wolf, that drifts now and then from the furniture, mixed up in the smells of the members of his cousin's pack that he's met, but never an exact match. It makes him edgy in a way he can't interpret; something like knowing a storm is on its way, but not knowing how or when it will hit.

 

“Where's the rest of your pack?”

 

“Jackson? He's on a trip with family.” The way Derek's jaw tenses speaks volumes of how he feels about the absence.

 

“You're worried about him.” It's a statement Kellen makes, not a question, and Derek has no problem acknowledging it's true. Out of all the werewolves in his pack, he's most connected to Jackson. Scott...Scott has always been something of a younger brother; half the time Derek wants to protect him, while the other half he wants to knock some sense into him. And Lydia reminds him so much of Laura that sometimes being with her is like being with a ghost. A strong willed, brilliant, bitch of a ghost, but a ghost nonetheless. It soothes and saddens him by turns – at least when she's not driving him up the wall.

 

They're his pack, they're his siblings, but Jackson...Jackson is his bite. Jackson is, for all intents and purposes, his  _child_ , and yes, he worries when he's away, because Jackson has built his world around his pack, even more so after he lets his friendship with Danny start to slowly dissolve. But he doesn't want to divulge too much of the inner workings of his pack to Kellen, family or no. It's not his business.

 

“He has...difficulties...with his relatives.”

 

“Do they know?” Kellen waves his hand vaguely in the air, but gets the point across.

 

“No.”

 

“Do any of their families know? Are any of them like us? Natural born?”

 

It's an amusing thought; the idea of how Melissa, or the Whittemores, or the Martins might react if they ever figured out their children were  _werewolves_ . Back when it becomes apparent that this house would become a second home to his pack, he makes the requisite round of parents, of dinners and afternoon visits, doing his best to convince them that  _no_ , he is not really a murderer, or a cult leader, or some pervert out to seduce their children into some sort of kinky sexual circle. He's just an average Beacon Hills resident who is gainfully employed – sort of true if one counts the online work he does for Google – and volunteers with Beacon Hills High as a mentor – not remotely close to true, but a lie Chris Argent backs up, because he knows a pack that young, without constant contact with their Alpha, can quickly become a liability. And despite what he says and how he may occasionally act, Chris doesn't actually  _want_ to kill children if he can help it.

 

Well, maybe Scott, but that has more to do with the number of times he's walked in on Scott and Allison, than with Scott's werewolf issues.

 

The point is that the lie smooths the way until the teens are old enough that parental consent is no longer an issue, and Derek has the chance to assess any challenges his pack are dealing with at home. And while he thinks Melissa might handle the truth with aplomb, Lydia's parents would definitely be horrified that their little princess's perfection has been shattered, completely ignoring the fact that Lydia is comfortable enough that she's dropped her ridiculous facade of pseudo-stupidity. And the Whittemore's...Derek just isn't sure. They love Jackson – that's not the question – but there's always been something about them that Derek just can't put his finger on.

 

Of course, Derek goes through the exact some rigamarole with Sheriff Stilinski, but while the sheriff smiles and nods in all the right places, Derek can tell he doesn't believe a word he's saying. In the end it comes down to a matter of trust. Not Sheriff Stilinski trusting Derek – he's fairly certain Stiles' father doesn't trust him any more than he could throw him – but that he trusts Stiles enough to know what he's doing and to come to him if he needs help. And that doesn't change any in the intervening three and a half years.

 

He shakes his head at Kellen. “No. They're all from the bite. I turned Jackson, but Scott and Lydia were Peter's. He didn't ask first.” The bite may be a gift, but turning someone against their will is something akin to rape in the werewolf community. Derek tries very hard not to think what he might do if he were faced with the choice of letting Stiles die, or changing him without permission.

 

“You made them pack when he died?” The question is carefully without judgment, and Derek appreciates Kellen not tacking on _when you killed him_. Peter had to be put down, there was no other choice, but Derek still remembers his uncle from before the fire, and it never stops hurting. None of it ever stops hurting.

 

“Yes,” he says shortly. It's unusual, he knows, but what else was he supposed to do? Omegas don't survive long on their own.

 

Kellen smiles, still watching Stiles flail from position to position across the couch, somehow managing not to fall off, or wake up, despite the thrashing. “My mother formed her pack when she was still a teenager. They were all Omegas before she found them. Some traditions are archaic and idiotic.”

 

There's a lull in the conversation, and out in the backyard, Derek hears Scott and Allison start to stir. Scott is whispering something semi-lewd in Allison's ear, and Derek tunes them out with little effort. It's a skill you learn early in a home where everyone has preternatural hearing.

 

“This computer expert he's going to see -” Kellen breaks in, after making a face, obviously hearing the same things Derek does.

 

“Danny. He's a friend.”

 

“Does he know?”

 

Derek shakes his head. Jackson's decision, Jackson's call. Six months after Jackson's change, Derek finally gives permission for Danny to be told. He doesn't like how it stresses Jackson to keep lying to Danny, not when he's one of the most important people in Jackson's life – more important than his parents, more important than his relationship with Lydia had ever been. He expects Jackson to be grateful, to be jubilant at the right to bring Danny into the fold.

 

Instead, what follows is one of the worst pack fights they've ever had, with Lydia and Stiles and Jackson all screaming at each other, while Scott and Allison look on with deer in the headlight looks. It turns out that even more than wanting to be able to tell Danny the truth, Jackson wants to keep him safe, and he's under no illusions about the amount of danger he could be placing Danny in, especially back in those days, with Gerard and Victoria still in the picture.

 

In the end, Jackson wins, accepting the ever growing distance between he and Danny as a fair price for Danny's safety.

 

“No, but he helps us sometimes. We trust him.”

 

They both still, as the sound of an engine approaching cuts through the air. Derek recognizes the familiar rumble and, once the car parks, the familiar scent, and is already at the door by the time Scott's mother knocks. Stiles jerks awake at the noise, falling off the couch with a solid thud before bouncing to his feet, eyes barely open and creases imprinted on his cheek in the pattern of the sofa.

 

“Wha - ?”

 

“Ms. McCall,” Derek says by way of explanation, before opening the door. 

 

Melissa smiles warmly from the porch, while a dark-haired man with a short, full beard peers over her shoulder; Derek immediately pegs him as the boyfriend. Melissa has been by the house a handful of times, so it's not completely unusual for her to show up, but neither is it expected.

 

Stiles waves sleepily over Derek's shoulder before collapsing back on the couch. “Morning, Ms. McCall.”

 

“Good morning, Stiles.” Her voice is full of fond exasperation, speaks of long years of having to bail Scott and Stiles out of trouble, of stitching up cuts and bandaging wounds, of an affection almost as strong as the love she has for her biological son. “Your dad said to remind you you promised to mow the lawn today.”

 

Stiles makes an unintelligible, but agreeable response as he scrubs a hand over his head and yawns widely. Melissa rolls her eyes before turning her attention back to where Derek is waiting.

  
  


“Hi. Sorry for the early hour. Scott left his wallet at the restaurant yesterday, and we were out for breakfast and thought we may as well swing it by for him.” She looks over her shoulder, her eyes crinkling at the corners when she grins at the man behind her. “Oh, you guys haven't met. Derek, this is Charlie. Charles. Charles, Derek. He's who Scott was talking about yesterday.”

  
  


Charles steps around her to offer his hand, which Derek obligingly takes. Firm handshake, but brief. “You can...uh...you can call me Charlie. I used to...I used to have some friends who called me Chuck, but that ended...not well. So, yeah, Charlie.” His voice trails off into inaudibility by the end, and Derek can see what Scott means when he labels him as twitchy. Despite that, there's nothing about Charlie that raises his hackles, and the way he looks at Melissa is so full of adoration that it's almost embarrassing to see.

  
  


The backdoor slams and Scott comes racing through the room, bypasses Derek completely and tackles Melissa with a full body hug. “Mom!”

  
  


She staggers back, laughing the whole way. “Hey you! You forgot your wallet; you're lucky Charlie saw it before we left.”

  
  


Scott reaches around Melissa to take the wallet Charlie is offering. “Ah, thanks! Weird. I could have sworn I had it.” He detaches from Melissa and she gently whacks the back of his head.

  
  


“You'd lose your head if it wasn't attached.” Then she finally catches sight of Kellen, still lounging against the doorway to the kitchen. “Oh. Hi. We haven't met?” She looks at Derek for introductions, but Kellen takes care of it himself, although he doesn't move from his position.

  
  


“Kellen Hale. Derek's cousin.” 

  
  


Melissa's forehead wrinkles, but she doesn't ask. Derek knows she'll just grill Scott later, rather than bring up the potential sore spot – the fact that all of Derek's family is supposedly dead. “Good to meet you. I'm this troublemaker's mom, and this is Charlie.”

  
  


Charlie just nods. “Good to see you, Kellen.”

  
  


“Okay, well, we'll get out of your hair.” She hugs Scott again. “Come visit sometime.”

  
  


Derek keeps the door open until the car disappears back into the woods, and Stiles finally manages to stand. “Dude, I see what you mean about him being a little weird.”

  
  


Scott shrugs. “He's a writer,” as if it explains everything. He backs away toward the kitchen. “So, yeah, going back to sleep.”

  
  


“AKA, having sex with your girlfriend,” Stiles grouses as he follows him as far as the kitchen, Derek at his heels. “Try to keep it down this time. Remember all us poor souls who aren't actually getting any.” He sits at the island and drops his forehead down to rest on the marble. “Why are we all awake again?”

  
  


Derek pulls the other two pop tarts from the toaster oven and puts them on a plate. He drops it in front of Stiles and then adds a glass of milk. “Shut up and eat.”

  
  


Stiles lifts his head and visibly brightens. “Oh! Breakfast!” He chews through a pop tart and a half before he suddenly squints at Derek suspiciously. “Dude, my shirt! I've been looking for it everywhere.” He doesn't look particularly upset, more like this is a conversation they've had more than once.”

  
  


Derek doesn't pause in his own eating, just says unrepentantly, “You shouldn't have left it here.”

  
  


Kellen watches the whole scene with a kind of bemusement. How can they not  _know_ ? Then he sees Derek look at Stiles when Stiles is staring raptly at the remainder of his last pop tart, and there's a kind of desperate hunger in his face, layered over with resignation and a little sorrow. It's enough to let Kellen know that, no, one of them is well aware of the ties between them, he's just not telling.

  
  


It's not his pack, and it's not his business, and he trusts that his cousin must have good reason for keeping his distance and his silence, but he doesn't understand how Derek could have his mate in front of him, has  _had_ him in front of him for years, and not  _take_ .

  
  


* * * * * * * * * 

Stiles knocks on Danny's door and waits, bouncing on his heels, hands shoved deep in his pockets. It's another minute before he hears the sound of Danny coming down his stairs. He owns a two story condo in one of the better sections of town, having managed to turn part time computer contract work into way more money than a twenty year old should ever have. Stiles isn't jealous. Not at all.

  
  


Danny opens the door and leans out, his usual exasperated Stiles look firmly in place. Stiles doesn't take offense. It's their thing. “Okay, Stilinski. What do you want this time?”

  
  


“Hey!” he protests. “This isn't a surprise. I called first.”

  
  


“Yeah, and asked for a favor. Which usually means you want me to break the law.”

  
  


“Shhh,” Stiles looks around in what is absolutely a covert manner. Danny just rolls his eyes and steps back from the door to let him in.

  
  


“Come on.”

  
  


He follows Danny to the room he's converted to a study/office. He's in shorts and a muscle shirt, and the Galaga tattoo he got in celebration of his full ride scholarship – the iconic white ship chasing one of those freaky bee looking aliens, in all their pixelated glory – is just peeking out from where the sleeve cuts across his shoulder. Stiles has occasionally offered his opinion on the idiocy of the tattoo, and Danny has snidely answered that Stiles just doesn't understand how groundbreaking the game actual was. It isn't until they all graduate from high school that Stiles figures out how much of an in the closet nerd Danny actually is.

  
  


Danny drops into his desk chair and turns it in a slow circle. Stiles has always liked Danny, admired him. Even back in high school, when most tenth graders are running around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to figure out who they want to be, Danny is comfortable in his own skin, self contained and confident; that jock who manages not to be an asshole, while still keeping an edge, who doesn't need to put people down to build himself up. It makes him the perfect foil for the douchebag Jackson is at the time; Stiles can only imagine how much worse Jackson would have been if not for Danny. It's vaguely terrifying.

  
  


And why he feels more than vaguely guilty when he dodges and evades Danny's questions about Jackson in the early days of the pack, when he willfully ignores how upset Danny is because he knows Jackson is lying to him, hiding things from him.

  
  


After the first year, Danny stops asking. He and Jackson still hang out a couple of times a month during the summer, or when they're in town at the same time, but it's not what it was in high school. There's distance there now, because Danny doesn't deal well with lies, especially not from Jackson.

  
  


Stiles tells himself it would have happened regardless. People graduate, people move on, people grow apart, even best friends. Stiles is a really shitty liar, even to himself.

  
  


“Come on, Stilinski, I don't have all day.”

  
  


Stiles gasps and presses a hand to his chest. “What? No foreplay? And here I thought you were a gentleman.”

  
  


Danny snorts dismissively. “Maybe if I thought you'd know what to do with it.”

  
  


Stiles is mildly insulted, but pulls a piece of paper from his backpack. “So, yeah, was wondering if you could trace any of these.”

  
  


“These are credit card and cell phone numbers. You realize this type of hacking is a felony, right?”

  
  


“I swear -” Stiles moves his hand to his heart - “that this is all in the pursuit of good.”

  
  


Danny holds his own hand out, palm up.

  
  


“Seriously, Danny? What about our friendship? What happened to the days of doing things out of the kindness of your heart?”

  
  


Danny just stares at him. “I don't charge you, you'll show up at my door even more than you already do. This is quantity control. And since I don't see any shirtless men around, I'm assuming you're paying in the usual way.”

  
  


“Wow. You are _never_ going to let that go, are you?”

  
  


“What? That you pimped your fake cousin out to a sixteen year old in order to get him to break the law? Not any time soon. Now, are we doing this?”

  
  


Stiles sighs, long and put upon, but digs around in his backpack and extracts a plastic DVD case. “Fine. The entire series of  _Infinite Ryvius._ Excellent quality, can't even tell it's bootleg. The things I do for you.” He sets it on the desk, because Danny is already typing away at the keyboard, faster than Stiles can follow.

  
  


“It'll do, Stilinski. Go bother someone else for a while. I'll call you when I have something.”

  
  


“Yeah, I love you, too, Danny. You want me to bring you back some lunch?”

  
  


Danny grunts and raises a hand in a dismissive gesture.

  
  


“Okay, I'll take that as a yes. Don't worry,” he calls over his shoulder as he heads toward the door, “I'll let myself out.”

  
  



End file.
